13 - Perspectives

The Costs and Benefits of Aggregation Exploitation versus Protection

The enormous appeal of fishing on large groups of temporarily assembled fish is that many can be caught quickly and easily, with important economic and social benefits. Fish spawning aggregations around the world have long formed the basis of seasonal ‘jackpot' fisheries, often involving whole communities, large business interests, or for special occasions.

From an economic perspective, aggregations represent excellent sources of large numbers of fish that can be taken efficiently, a welcome saving of time and operation costs from a commercial or operational perspective, and an attractive opportunity for recreational anglers. They can also be appealing to sports fishers, through dive tourism. Given the benefits and appeal of aggregation-fishing on the one hand, and the longterm problems created by their uncontrolled exploitation on the other, it is timely to add economics to the mix in assessing aggregation-fisheries and objectively compare cost and benefits of protection.

As one example, regular fish gatherings are an obvious target for fishing. However, when commercial pressures come into play, the economics of having gluts of fish in markets resulting in lower value per fish, which often occurs, combined with the negative biological implications of heavy aggregation-fishing (i.e. aggregations losses), make aggregation fishing much less appealing as a long-term good use of natural resources. This situation calls for a closer look at the economics of aggregation versus non-aggregation fishing. The table examines just some of the various costs and benefits of aggregation exploitation versus protection. I would welcome further input to the table.

Economic analyses of the possible costs and benefits of significant aggregation fisheries, and the short- and long-term implications of aggregation protection, can determine the best overall social and economic value of aggregations that is also consistent with good biological management of the target population. Analyses could address fishing volume and value on and off aggregations, with and without aggregation fishing and would need to consider market conditions of supply and demand, fisher responses to management, costs, catchability, profitability, etc. to fully understand the implications of managing aggregations... or not.

Yvonne Sadovy de Mitcheson
SCRFA
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 Expense of monitoring can be costly, and is needed for both options